


Breaking Chains

by Carrollesque



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Erik Killmonger Lives, Gen, Organizing, Prison, Redemption, Revolution, mentor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-14 14:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14137575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrollesque/pseuds/Carrollesque
Summary: Erik "Killmonger" Stevens is saved from his own suicide by vibranium healing tech, then sentenced to prison and hard labor to atone for his crimes. Along the way, he learns that simply replicating the world's oppression isn't enough. He has to learn, and organize, and prepare. Prompted by an idea from @_CharlesPreston.





	1. Chapter 1

“Prison’s are pretty much the same all over.”

That was Erik Stevens’ first impression of the place. Towering guard posts, energy fields instead of barbed wire, and the slow, steady heat of Wakanda instead of the oppressive Georgia sun. It looked fancier, sure enough. It was all high-tech vibranium wizardry, but still bent to the same purpose as concrete and metal bars. To him, it looked like overkill. Arrogance, to use force fields where fences would do. 

Someone shoved him from behind and he stumbled forward. A guard or another inmate, it barely mattered. He’d lost himself in his own mind, replaying the events that led him here. His ascendancy. The battle with T’Challa. His failure. His attempt to take the honorable way out, choosing death over bondage,  but the healing power of vibranium that had denied him even that.

So instead he was here. In another line, waiting to go into another prison. In the back of his head, he knew he had to focus. He couldn’t let the shove go unanswered, or it’d just mean more trouble later. Still, he found it hard to find the urge to care about anything, even his own self-preservation. So instead he just stumbled forward and looked down, at the sparkling blue shackles of energy binding his wrists together

The next few hours passed in a haze. The same dehumanization, the same humiliations as you’d find in any other prison on earth. He’d come directly from his hospital bed, the shackles binding him to the frame of the bed during his convalescence now bound his hands to one another, but the point of his subjugation wasn’t any authentic search for contraband. It never was. It was about the message.  _ You are not in control _ .

He was vaguely aware of someone speaking. Him and the other convicts had been made to line up in a yard, issued a plain black waistcloth for modesty’s sake. But his hands were still shackled, so all it could do was hang limply from his hands. 

It was a warden speaking. Or whatever euphemism for jailer the Wakandan’s had settled on. It was the same old-same-old. Warnings of dire punishments should anyone step out of line. Exhortations to reform, to repay the  _ generosity _ of their elders and king for showing them the mercy of leniency. For allowing them the  _ opportunity _ to repay their debt to their betters. Vaguely, Erik wondered what the split was, between regular old criminals, debtors in over their heads, or political prisoners, enemies of the state like him. It didn’t seem like they made much of a distinction. At least formally.

Eventually, the energy field binding his wrists together flickered and died, but the rings of vibranium-infused metal remained around his wrists. A constant reminder that at a moment’s notice, at a flick of some switch, his wrists could once again be bound. The guards and warden left them then, to tie their waistcloths and acclimate, as best they could, to their new circumstances.

Erik did his best to slink away, to some forgotten corner of the yard. He mostly wanted the same thing he had wanted from the moment he had woken up in a hospital bed, to crawl into some forgotten hole and die. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing ever was. 

A mass of hard muscle and sinew blocked his path. There was a head at the top of it, leering down at him. Two massive arms crossed over a chest and a piercing glare. Erik’s battle sense keyed him into the signs of impending, unavoidable conflict. The other inmates backing away from them. A loose semi-circle forming. A hush  falling over the crowd, save for a few quiet whispers and a few bets being placed.

“This is the deathbringer, is it? The ‘Killmonger?’ The man who would be king?” The obstacle spoke, his voice dripping with derision. Erik flinched at the moniker. It had started as an insult. He had made it a mark of respect, of his own destiny. To kill. To conquer. Now, it only sounded sad. Pathetic.

The bigger man continued, “Out there, you tried to kill the king. In here,  _ I _ am the King.” He jabbed a meaty finger into Erik’s chest, then turned it back to himself, a crude illustration of their difference in station.

“You want to take your shot now, ‘Killmonger’? Try to kill another king?” The King stepped back, opening his arms wide, as if to encompass all of his tiny kingdom. Erik said nothing. Did nothing. Kept his head down. This, too, would pass.

The King clicked his tongue in disgust. “No. I don’t imagine you could kill anything, let alone a king. You have wasted away in some hospital bed. But maybe you think you will wait. Bide your time. Grow stronger. And  _ then _ , come for the King.” Erik sensed it, the tensing of muscle, the sudden explosion of force, but he did not move. Maybe he’d get lucky and this brute would actually finish him off. Instead, the blow connected with the side of his head, sending him tumbling to the ground.

His teeth rattled in his head and he tasted the familiar iron taste of blood in his mouth. He curled in on himself, reflexively. But he didn’t fight back. The King began to kick him, raining blows into his chest, punctuating each of his words with a blow, “ _ You. Cannot. Kill. Me.” _

As Stevens slowly began to black out, his tormentor seemed to become satisfied. The crowds drifted away, listlessly. Bets were argued over. Had it even been a fair fight? The dust of Wakanda settled over Erik Stevens.

“Get up, N'Jadaka.” 

Someone spoke his name. His Wakandan name. A hand reached down, grabbing him by the arm. It felt weathered, old. There was a grunting as someone strained, lifting him up, onto his feet. Stevens slumped onto his rescuer, and they groaned under his weight. As his eyes fluttered deliriously, Erik saw glimpses of the older man. Now, he was his uncle. Now his father. Now a tired old man, a shock of grey hair and a scraggly beard, bent, wireframe glasses perched on a crooked nose. 

Together, the two men shuffled off the yard, towards a small assemblage of huts. Erik’s would-be ally half-carried him into one such wattle-and-daub structure, no doubt built by the inmates themselves. At least it was cooler here. The elder man laid him down, on a scant bed of rags in a corner of the hut. Stevens wheezed, trying to say something. Maybe a note of thanks. Maybe an exhortation for the other man to just let him die. The elder man shushed him gently.

“Quiet now, N’Jadaka. Rest now. Tomorrow we talk. Tomorrow we  _ learn _ .”

The older man’s voice was worn and crooked. It seemed to rattle out of his throat, but somehow, it was oddly soothing. Slowly, the last of Erik Steven’s consciousness faded away. 

Later, he would look back and reflect on this day. Erik Stevens would mark it as the day that ‘Killmonger’ died. 

But now, he rested.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik "Killmonger" Stevens begins to learn more about the hierarchy or the tribal oligarchy in Wakanda, it's consequences, and how simply replacing one colonial empire for another is not enough.

Erik was getting tired of rehabilitating. His beating seemed to have cost him what little strength the vibranium medicine had put back into him. His rescuer slowly revealed himself to Erik over the meals of thin gruel the older man fed him as he nursed back his health. He called himself Sanka, though he admitted it wasn’t his only name. He was a refugee, a native of Burkina Faso whose family had fled shortly after the coup in ‘87. Apparently refugees were just about as popular in Wakanda as they were in the rest of the world, and eventually Sanka found himself on the wrong side of the royal family. 

The old man wheezed and laughed, “You thought you were the only political prisoner here, N’Jadaka? The only outsider? Tell me, how did you _think_ Wakanda stayed hidden all these centuries?”

Outsiders in Wakanda, even those fleeing oppression, quickly found themselves at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Anyone who entered Wakanda was barred from leaving, and they surrendered what rights they had at the border.  While Wakanda’s wealth in Vibranium bought it’s citizens social welfare programs and a high standard of living, refugees were meant to “earn” their place in Wakanda. Each one was settled with a debt on arrival. Those who could pay it off might find themselves gradually integrating into Wakandan society. Those who couldn’t pay… well, eventually they found their way to the work yards and crop fields, as Erik now did.

“Wakanda is a place of hierarchy, N’Jadaka.” Over a meal, Sanka built a pyramid with his hands, illustrating Wakandan society. “At the bottom, the outsider, the refugee. Above, the average Wakandan. But even he is no more free. The Wakandan has no vote, no freedom of thought, let alone press. The system is feudal. The king allows the elders and chieftains some autonomy, but he is in control. This is the social contract of the royalty: they share their unearned vibranium wealth with their people; schools, healthcare, a comfortable wage for any Wakandan that will take it. In exchange, the people give up their choice. Their autonomy, their right to challenge authority. 

“Everything is hierarchy. Even this prison. At the top you have men like the King. Hardened criminals. They count themselves superior to us, the political prisoners and debtors. Even though they are murderers or thieves… they still hold their head higher than us, the petty fools who were imprisoned, in their eyes, for nothing.”

Sanka smiled sadly at Erik, “That was your sin, N’Jadaka. Not the killing, but the challenge. To their authority. To the hierarchy that defines their society. Parent rules child. Elder rules tribe. Employer rules employee. King rules all.”

At first, the words only washed over Erik. He did his best to ignore them. What did it matter what the old man babbled at him? He knew what he was. How he had failed.

Eventually, though, as his strength grew, Stevens started to push back, if only to get Sanka to shut up for a minute.

“So what if it ain’t a democracy, huh? What, you think a democracy’s so great?” Erik scoffed, remembering his own upbringing in Oakland  and the so-called “bastion of democracy” that was the United States.

“Call it a democracy, all you do is change how they lie to you. They put you in prison on some bullshit charge, now you can’t vote. You vote, they don’t count it. If they do count it, they make you choose between the guy that tells you to your face that he’s gonna fuck you and the one that just does it behind your back. Fuckin’ democracy.” He shook his head, but Sanka was smiling.

“At least here they let me take my shot. They might not’ve liked it, but they gave me the chance. Me vs. him. But I lost. Now here I am. And whining about democracy ain’t gonna fix anything one bit.”

Sanka only nodded, a self-assured look on his face. Pleased with himself. He had all the time he needed to teach.

 

* * *

 

The guards ignored them for the most part, those first few weeks. Erik was too weak to be any good in the fields, and it seemed to suit someone in power’s interest that he stayed alive, so Sanka was allowed to tend to him. But eventually, as Stevens got back on his feet, the two of them were put to work, out in the fields.

As they tilled the rows of crops under the hot sun, Erik was left alone. Sanka knew better than to try to talk to him when he had his blood up. But in the few quiet stolen moments of rest, or in a patch of shade, Sanka would start back up again.

“All of society is built on labor. Master and slave. Ruler and subject. The latter is bound to give their labor to the former. They have no choice in the matter. Even in a modern, so-called democracy, as you say, one cannot escape this paradigm." 

“No man that can exercise control over his own labor can be counted free. Any man that is bound to his trade, whether for a wage or some other tithe, is a slave. So, what do we do about it?” Sanka would ask these little questions. If Erik ignored him, he would just rephrase and try again. The only way to get any peace was to answer.

“Fight for your freedom. You’re either a master or a slave,” Stevens spat back.

“Mmm. And so you did. You fought. Alone. Tell me, N’Jadaka, do you feel free?”

 

* * *

 

It seemed “The Killmonger” was a minor celebrity. Everyone knew his story, even if the luster of it had been somewhat dimmed by the beating he had took. He mostly avoided the King, slunk around with Sanka when he had to, hid alone when he could. The King seemed pleased with the current state of affairs, convinced that “The Killmonger” had been more hype than reality.

Sanka, however, was more of a mystery. Only gradually did he revealed himself to Erik. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. Through bits and pieces in his wandering lectures to the younger man, Erik began to understand his would-be mentor’s life story.

Upon arriving in Wakanda, Sanka had worked. He had drifted from fieldwork to minework with the other outsiders, as tasks of manual labor - those Wakandans deemed beneath them - were the primary vocation of the immigrants. The pay was a pittance.

Eventually though, Sanka’s education, a talent for letters and words, caught the eye of a minor Wakandan noblemen, an elder of some sort. He was offered a position as a scribe, which he leapt at.

He did not forget his upbringing in Burkina Faso, or the plight of his fellow refugees. He resolved to work within the system, studying the laws and politics, such as they were, of Wakanda. Sanka made himself invaluable to his benefactors, and so his station rose. 

Too quickly, some would say. He used what power he had to try and advocate for the rights of the people, Wakandan and refugee alike. His writing was precise, careful to never run afoul of the harsh censorship laws imposed by King T'Chaka. Eventually though, even his subtle, careful critiques were banned. 

He went underground with his writings. Passing pamphlets among Wakanda’s student and intellectual circles. When they finally caught him, among his charges were “Corrupting the Youth.” Sanka had hoped for a velvet revolution, a softening of the autocratic elite and gradual political freedom. In the end, he had failed. In the end, he had winded up precisely where N’Jadaka did. 

“At least my way, I got to be king,” grumbled Erik.

Sanka shook his head, “Not for long, N'Jadaka. Not for long.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Erik knew Sanka was right. He had failed. He had been weak. He often found himself ruminating over this. Chewing over every mistake, alone in his own self hatred and pity. But still, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out. Where had he gone wrong? What mistake had he made?

Hadn’t he been stronger than T’Challa? Hadn’t he beaten him once? Why, then, had his strength, his training, his destiny failed?

“You were alone, N’Jadaka.”

They were in the hut they shared, resting after a hard day out in the fields. Erik cursed under his breath. He must’ve been mumbling to himself again.

“What’d you say?” He shot back, challenging Sanka.

The older man sat across from him, cross-legged. “That is why you failed. You were alone. You sought only to replicate the hierarchy. To replace one king for another.”

“I wanted to _free people_ . And I didn’t take _no_ for an answer. I did it _my_ way. And people fell in line.” Erik was defensive, “You, what, wanted to convince people to just give up? Just say, ‘oh, yeah, my bad, guess I’ll give up bein’ king cuz some folks don’t like it.’ “

Sanka shook his head, “I did the same as you. I was alone. I thought my words could move others, but I held myself above them. I sought only to teach, never to learn.”

“Oh yeah? What’re you learning now, old man?”

Sanka grinned, a bit wearily. “You must think you are the only one of your kind, N’Jadaka. The only one who saw the world, saw it’s injustice, and wanted to change it. Why do you think the War Dogs went along with your plan? Many a War Dog came home to Wakanda with dreams of justice in his heart. Where do you think they wound up? Those that sided with you?”

Erik didn’t answer. He’d been dwelling on his own misfortune, he hadn’t paused to consider the fate of the others that had backed his play for the throne.

Sanka continued, “Some were forgiven. At least publically. Stripped of their rank in private, warned that their families in Wakanda would join them in exile if they spoke out. Others were executed. Others, still, ended up right here. In chains alongside their would-be king.”

Stevens sighed, “You think I owe ‘em something then, huh?”

The older man shook his head, “They did what they did not because of you, but because of what you believed in. Or, at least, what you said you believed in. A world free of injustice, of oppression. I am only sad they chose a would-be dictator.”

“What, exactly, was the alternative!?” Erik shouted, feeling his blood rise, “Huh? You talk about oppression and injustice, but how exactly do you want me to fix it, huh? What did you want me to do?”

Sanka smiled, then. A wide, toothy grin. “Not _you_ , N’Jadaka. _We_. One man does not change the world. _All_ of us, _we_ , aligned by common interest, do it _together_. Let me show you something.”

The old man pulled himself to his feet, busying himself in a corner of the hut with a surprising amount of dexterity, almost giddy in his excitement. “They do not let us have books, you see. Those from outside Wakanda are hunted down and destroyed, for every monarch knows that a book is more dangerous than any weapon. So, I secreted them away.” He withdrew a small parcel, wrapped carefully in an oilskin, revealing an old, dusty tome. On its cover was printed _The Communist Manifesto_.

Erik scoffed, “What, you want me to read some book? By some dusty, dead white guy?”

Sanka nodded, “This is only the foundation, N’Jadaka. You will read more. Our people have built on this foundation. Angela Davis. Sankara. Malcolm X. Mandela. George Jackson. Assata.”

Stevens paused then. The way Erik saw it, Sanka couldn’t keep jabbering at him if he was reading. And it was a better way to pass the time than just ruminating on his own failures.

“Alright. Pass it over. Let’s see what they got to say.” 

Later, he would remember the day. The day N’Jadaka was born.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik reads, learns, and begins to direct his focus outward. Elsewhere, Shuri contemplates the impact she has had on the lives of her people.

N’Jadaka was learning. Marx was dry, a little stuffy at times for his liking. He liked Malcolm and Angela better. Lenin and Trotsky were alright, though they too could get their heads up their own asses at times. Still, he liked  _ permanent revolution _ . It sounded like a plan.

His arguments with Sanka grew into debates, and debates into discussions. Sanka urged that they shouldn’t just focus on themselves, they had to  _ build solidarity _ with others. They started small. Fellow War Dogs, other political prisoners. The reading groups grew, slowly but steadily.

By candlelight in huts, they debated and planned. It wasn’t enough to just replace the hierarchy with a new one. They needed to know what would come after.

Reform for immigrants was the first obvious element. Full rights for immigrants and an abolishment of the immigration debt proved popular among the debtors. 

Land reform was a hot topic as well. Most of Wakandan farmland was still held by the nobility. Even the fields they worked belonged to some noble chieftain or another. It would have to be redistributed, handed over to the peasantry.

Erik and the War Dogs debated over their foreign policy, analyzing the failures of their abortive first attempts and his father’s. Once the revolution was won at home, it would be within their grasp to export it to every other nation on earth. But, where Killmonger had preached a top-down uprising, uniting the world under Wakandan rule, N’Jadaka argued for autonomous, bottom-up revolutions aided and enabled by Wakandan vibranium. 

It kept their mind off the drudgery if nothing else. But still, Erik had his doubts. If they could get past the manacles around their hands, get past the force fields and towers, get out, into the countryside, amongst the workers and peasants who toiled on Wakandan land… then they might have a chance. But that was a pretty big  _ if _ .

Sanka saw things differently. “The Wakandans have put all their faith in their technology. They fail to realize that a single person, a small cadre, could defeat it all. We have allies, N’Jadaka. As I’ve told you before, you are not the only one who has seen the world’s injustice.”

Allies. It was hard to imagine. But the books had to be coming from somewhere. For now, they’d plan. They’d organize. They’d prepare.

Their organizing didn’t escape notice, though they were careful to hide it from the guards and cameras that watched over them. Harder to avoid were their fellow inmates, especially the hardened criminals that pledged their loyalty to King, and formed their own mini-hierarchy. 

It started with harassment. A push here. A shove there. Someone getting short-changed in the lunch line, or dropping a dime to the guards. It was obvious the King meant to provoke another confrontation. 

Sanka, as always, preached restraint. “It is not about you and him, N’Jadaka. What will it prove, if you fight him and win? That you are dominant? Would you make yourself a king again?”

Erik knew he was right. But still, something had to be done, and N’Jadaka had a plan.

 

* * *

Every few months, there were new prisoners. Every time, they were brought in, given the same speech by the Warden. Every time, the King would single out some poor bastard and make an example of him. With a wry understanding, Erik realized just how un-special he was. He hadn’t been the first, but maybe he could be the last. 

The crowd was already forming as Erik arrived. It was the only entertainment most of the prisoner’s ever saw, seeing the King beat down some unlucky newcomer. Erik had his own plans, of course. He’d conspired with his comrades, ensuring that they were in the crowd, strategically placed to intervene if necessary. This was no longer a personal battle. It was a war.

N’Jadaka crept forward, careful to stay in the King’s blindspot as he showboated for the crowd, “Here, I am King! Me! No other!”

The King raised his massive fist to land his first blow on his unlucky victim. He didn’t notice N’Jadaka on his flank, but the crowd did. A gasp and a shout rang out, but it was too late. Erik has seized the King’s arm, and threw the momentum of it back on itself, toppling the King over onto the ground.

“No kings, no masters,” Erik muttered to himself. He was almost detached from the violence. It was perfunctory, professional. Still, he couldn’t help throwing in a bit of gloating. 

He knelt in the dirt by the King’s head, seizing him by the neck and muttering so that only the larger man could hear, “My cousin taught me a lesson. Imma teach it to  _ you _ now.  _ You shoulda killed me when you had the chance. _ ” 

The King grunted and strained as N’Jadaka wrapped his arms around the larger man’s head in a half-nelson, but it was to no avail. With a deft twist of his arms, there was a sickening crack as the King’s neck broke in N’Jadaka’s arms. 

Erik pulled himself to his feet, letting the “King‘s” body fall into the dust and dirt. There was dead silence in the crowd that had gathered around them. N’Jadaka fixed his comrades with a steely glare, then he laughed. A hollow, echoing noise, dripping with bitterness, with suffering.  

“Ya’ll might think you’re looking at a king. I ain’t a king.” He shook his head as he chuckled.

“I ain’t your Messiah. I ain’t your king. I can’t free you, anymore than he could. All I can do is ask you to  _ recognize _ what we could do together. As one. I can’t break your chains. All I can do is hand you the spade, so you can free each other.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Those who had already joined him knew that this was it,  _ this was the signal _ . Now, the only question was whether the others would join, or stand in their way.

“It’s up to ya’ll. I can’t do this alone. Do you want to start a riot, or do you want to start a  _ revolution? _ ”

He looked around to his gathered comrades, their faces, lit with hope. One raised his fist. Then another. A shout echoed from the back,

_ “REVOLUTION!” _

A call. Then another. And another. Soon, they were chanting it. Screaming it, their fists pumping in the air, banging the manacles around their wrists against one another.

The signal came down, and their wrists snapped together, pulled by the invisible attraction of vibranium. The switch had been flipped. 

N’Jadaka smiled as the manacles locked around his legs, sending him tumbling into the dirt. It didn’t matter. Even if they locked him up, even if they killed him, they couldn’t kill this. The spark had been lit. There was no stopping it now. They were just getting started.

 

* * *

 

Shuri watched her cousin through the holoscreen. The recording showed him to be a bit more weathered than when she had last seen him. More scars. The resolution was grainy, she had to hunt through several layers of security to even get this footage. No one wanted this to get out. Still, her cousin’s final words echoed in her head.

_ “D’you want to start a riot, or do you want to start a revolution!?” _

He had changed, that was certain. He wasn’t the same egocentric, fascist, would-be king. No. His charisma remained, but the focus was changed. Directed outward. To others. Not self-aggrandizement.

With a flick of her wrist, she dismissed the screen, leaving behind only the window out of her office, looking down on the Oakland streets below. She sighed. Already a year, and so little had changed.

She had started with the best of hopes. Technology was like magic to her, it seemed to flow and contort to her whims. But it only went so far. She could teach youngsters to code, but their fathers were still locked up in prisons. She could teach them to be proud of who they were, where they came from, but the police still gunned them down in their streets.

“Less than lethal weaponry.” That had been her brother’s grand solution to police shootings in America. Wakandan technology, used to stun, shock, and capture young men. When the police even bothered to use it. 

It was just one of many examples. Every bit of technology they shared, every bit of knowledge they hoped would be used wisely, was instead twisted by the colonizers. Used for their own dark ends, though usually with a happy sticker or euphemism attached.

They had meant to free their people. But here she was, her creations just causing them more suffering. Technology, alone, had no moral bearing. It could be used for good or ill. A hard lesson for her to learn, but it was one that Shuri was learning well.

Shuri used to fight, used to rage, throw things when she heard of the latest perversion of what she had helped build. Now, her anger grew cold. Charter schools and less-than-lethal weren’t enough. They would never be enough. And she would no longer be a part of the problem.

She flicked the beads around her wrist, calling up a secure channel through to Nakia, and spoke the words that would change history, “ _ I’m ready to join the revolution _ .”


End file.
